Romanadvoratrelundar
by Ace of Gallifrey
Summary: While the Doctor was staging his tiny rebellion, a little girl was born on Gallifrey who knew a few things about loneliness. Romana before she was Romana. Five connected oneshots.
1. Idris

**Title-** Romanadvoratrelundar**  
Characters/Pairings-** Romana I and a handful of OCs**  
Rating-** K+**  
Summary-** While the Doctor was staging his tiny rebellion, a little girl was born on Gallifrey who knew a few things about loneliness. Romana before she was Romana.

**A/N-** As you can tell, I've tied this into my Idris-is-Romana theory. I like that theory, and will never let it go for anything, even if Moffat DOES crush my hopes and dreams AGAIN. Five connected oneshots here. Next one will be up within a week, if things go according to plan.

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1. Idris

The girl is born into House Arpexia. She is a natural birth, which is unusual, particularly within Arpexia, the members of which are known for their scholarly and rational ways. But their are black sheep in every family (particularly these days, she's told as she grows older, with more radicals in the generation just preceding her own than ever before in Gallifreyan history). Her mother was always a bit of a wild one; brilliant, incredibly talented, but flighty as Time Ladies go. The child learns quickly to be embarrassed by this.

She is named Idris. It's a nonsense name, given by an illogical mother and a father who couldn't possibly care less. (Later, when she begins her studies, she will realize that her family is what would be called by primitive cultures as dysfunctional, but having no frame of reference during her early childhood, she simply assumes that this is normal.) Her father, Nasalien, is a scientist, specializing in advanced microbiology. It is respectable enough. Her mother, Meliandra, is a composer. It is... well, it's supposedly respectable, as the music of Gallifrey is considered some of the finest in the known universe, but really, it's a job for those people with no grounding in reality. Idris hides from her mother, afraid from the first that somehow she will absorb capriciousness through osmosis if Meliandra comes too near.

From the very beginning, she is reserved. By the time she is three years old, she is just big enough to pull down books from her father's shelves. Most days, she prefers to bury herself in the ancient, dusty tomes rather than expose herself to the noise and fuss of the other Time Tots in the nursery. It doesn't help that most of them were Loomed, meaning they came into this world as children rather than infants, and though they are around her own age, physically they look several years older. She frowns at their antics and tucks herself away in a corner with a book almost as big as she is and hides behind her curtain of dark hair.

The matron in charge of Arpexia's young ones smiles indulgently at her and calls her precocious, and she is. She devours her father's collection, going through the histories and the scientific volumes alike. By the time she is four, she can lecture anyone about proper treatment for Harzibald's Disease or the perfect gravitational balance between the twin suns that allows Gallifrey to maintain its' elliptical orbit.

Her favorites, though, are the stories. Tales of wild exploits out among the stars, of great heroes- sometimes fictionalized accounts of the exploits of Rassilon and Omega, sometimes pure fiction- they capture her imagination and send her spiraling out into a universe filled with wonder and mystery and foreign emotions so intense they bring tears to her eyes and make her hearts beat rapid-fire in her chest. She wants to be one of the heroes she has read about in these stories, brave and fearless and defending the weak, striding out across the universe in search of the next brilliant, madcap adventure.

Unfortunately, Idris is a novelty to the other children- a girl easily as intelligent as any of them (probably more so)- but who looks so much _younger_. Two of them works up the courage to trespass in her corner.

"Whatcha reading, Iddy?" one young Gallifreyan asks, pulling the book in question roughly from her hands. Idris jumps to her feet, trying to take the book back, but he is taller by far and holds it out of her reach. He examines the cover for a moment, then tilts it to show his compatriot, a little blonde girl who smirks at the title.

"_The Grand Adventures of the Fearless Salyavin_?" she sneers. "What absolute tripe! Are you really reading this, Iddy? A sensible girl like you?"

The first child turns to the rest of the young ones scattered around the room. "Hey, Iddy's reading about batty old Salyavin!" he calls, and titters break out across the nursery.

Idris stamps her foot. "Give it back, Moleyvi!" she shouts, uncomfortable and afraid under the staring eyes of the other children.

He holds the book over her head, waving it back and forth as she jumps vainly to try and reach for it, inwardly cursing the bad luck of the natural-born.

The blonde girl, meanwhile, isn't quite done mocking her. "Oh Iddy," she says condescendingly. "You really should think more carefully about the things you study. I mean, Salyavin,_ really_? One might as well read stories about the Doctor! You don't want to end up like your mother, do you? All unfocused and wild?"

Idris stops grasping for the book very suddenly.

The boy drops it on the floor in front of her and kicks it, sending it spinning away across the floor. Then he and his friend turn their backs and walk away.

She is shocked by the incident. She doesn't know what to make of her peers' harsh words. She curls up in her corner, eyeing the book as if it may bite her. Part of her wants to cry. In fact, a very large part of her wants to cry very, very much. But she refuses to show anything else that might be deemed "unfocused" by the other children. No sign of capriciousness is going to escape _her_. She's not her mother. She's not the freak, the one who lives by emotions and whims and fancy rather than reason and fact. She's _not_. And so she bites down on her tongue _hard_ and holds back the prickling at the corners of her eyes and recites the first two hundred digits of pi in her head and when she's done she's calm again and no harm is done.

When she is unceremoniously returned to her parents that evening, her father asks her where the book she borrowed has gotten to. She tells him she forgot it in the nursery, and is given a frown and harsh words for her trouble.

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**A/N2-** Because even Time Tots can be cruel, and even on Gallifrey families will screw you over. (Ooh, that sounded _bitter_! I promise I'm not! I love my family, really I do, I haven't been screwed up by them!)


	2. Initiation

**A/N- **Okay, if you haven't seen _Calapine_'s YouTube DW tribute to 'What About Everything,' you NEED to. Especially if, like me, you're not a "new series fan" or a "classic series fan" but just a Doctor Who fan- not picking sides in the eternal war between eras, just loving the show for itself. It's everything (and I do mean EVERYTHING) from '63-'07, and it's AWESOME. Best fanvid I have ever seen. _(Calapine_ has also made some really awesome Doctor/Romana videos which I absolutely adore, just FYI.)

Tag this onto the YouTube URL to see it: /watch?v=lxyD9NyfLX8

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2. Initiation

The night is cool, and tomorrow she will be eight years old. Idris lies in her flat on her back in her small bed, palms pressed flat against her thighs and heels tucked straight together, and fixates on the ceiling. One year ago today (or rather, it will be one year ago in exactly twenty-three minutes), on her seventh birthday, she entered the Academy.

Since that day, she has been studying a rigorous course in basic mathematics (temporal geometry, mostly, with a smattering of recreational mathematics and some five-dimensional algebra). Her instructors have told her time and time again that other things- physics, biology, temporal engineering and the like- can be learned later, when she has been initiated into the High and Noble Society of Time Lords, and her studies begin in earnest, but mathematics, the root of all sciences, must be learned early and learned well.

Her Time Sense manifested when she was but six, months before any of her peers, and very clearly, even for a natural-born. Or at least, that was what Lord Braxiatel said when he paid a visit to her father after her precocity was discovered. She wasn't supposed to be aware of how unusual she was, but she had been listening outside the library door while her parents and Braxiatel discussed her future.

As she stares at the soft gold ceiling above her, she replays the things he said all those months ago in her mind.

_"Your daughter has great potential, my Lord Nasalien. She has quite a gift for handling Time, and she is obviously very intelligent. If she is raised properly, if she is taught and shaped with the utmost care, she could achieve a great deal. As a matter of fact..." Braxiatel hesitated, and it sounded to Idris, crouching in her nightgown outside, like the pause was more for effect than from any need to ponder. "As a matter of fact, I believe she has the makings of a fine president..."_

Tomorrow, on the day that marks the end of her eighth year of life, she is to be taken at dawn for her initiation. She knows very well- because her father has told her, again and again- that she is the best hope for her family to achieve greatness. It all hinges on what happens tomorrow.

There are three possibilities about what will happen to her, and she knows them well. For weeks now, she has been reading accounts of various famous (or infamous) initiations in order to prepare herself.

She might go mad. She doesn't think that will happen. Madness is for people with disorderly minds, and she's been trying to keep hers tidy.

Or perhaps she'll be terrified by whatever it is she sees within the Untempered Schism and run away. That one scares her more than madness, because it is a real possibility. The idea that she might throw away all the hope her father has placed on her shoulders because she has no self-control is horrifying. She would still go on, still enter the Academy proper and become a real Time Lady at last, but she would always be just a little... lesser.

The only option, as far as she is concerned, is the preferred option. Inspiration. She wonders what Time itself will look like, if it will at all resemble the faint little wisps of pastpresentfuture she catches out of the corners of her eyes sometimes. She hopes so. She likes that. She could be inspired by that.

.

Dawn comes, and she is there, in the middle of the Blasted Plain- so called because a three-mile radius of ground was shattered into barren rock and heat-fused glass by the opening of the Schism- in the red robes of initiation, and the upper edge of Mila, the larger sun, is just peeping over the horizon, staining everything scarlet to match. Braxiatel is officiating, and she listens as he drones out the ancient speech she has read enough times to murmur it under her breath as he speaks, wishing that he would just hurry up and let her get on with it. She is terrified, but she wants this over with. But, as with everything in her life, nothing comes fast enough.

Finally, though, it is time, and as Mila rises completely over the horizon, she steps forward, and peers in-

and TIME dark eyes, ancient, mysterious _deepest_ RED and _what is it_ everything just MY and the bright _timeless_ with the right calculations we YOU CAN'T! then all _nothing will ever_ I don't MAYBE WHEN and then the Doctor IT ISN'T _the rising moons_ tied in the _emeralds everywhere_ and then TIME fire and burning and screaming _within yourself_ and the Shadow's torture NOTHINGNESS what has been _the dark sky filled_ TIME I should think we NEVER? _But what_ altogether strange DON'T DO _my favorite charger_ SAME and LEELA there was something just there _shatterglass and_ GOLD by the _blue on the bay_ if you can't _just stop this_ TIME no one ever _something_ if you knew what she IT WASN'T but then the bright _glittering shining in the dark as_ no one comes when you're ONE LAST DAY WITH on wings of spun _only in my _particular favorite _it doesn't matter what_ this won't _slightly insane but _then there's TIME and somewhere in the light she _know what you're up_ it isn't quite what I _no you can't_ except there's still FIRE AND ICE AND _someone might _out there TIME AND RELATIVE DIMENSION IN SPACE _in the back of the _ripping across the _don't you_ that's her _no way!_ I thought it _but if the Time_ LADY PRESIDENT I think maybe TIME

-and falls to her knees, covering her head and burying her face in the soil and stifling a cry as tears run down her face because it _hurts_...

Pieces sort themselves out in her quaking mind. The Doctor, that mad, impossible Doctor who will change her life, and the Time War, with her a veritable war queen, all pale and cold and triumphant as a bloody angel until those last terrible days and the joy and the life and the laughter and the terror and the wonder and the bad and the good and the complicated things and all the little pieces of her life that Time has shown her...

And then they fade away, because that is what happens. You see your whole future revealed to you, but you never remember it after. Only imprints stay with you, little feelings to tip you off about major turning points in your timeline, and sometimes emotions to accompany them.

As Time leeches out of her mind, her tears of pain turn to tears of joy, because she is still here, and she knows, now, what she has to do. She must be the absolute best she can be, and put her mind to work, so that she can save Gallifrey. She's not sure what she's meant to save it from, but something, at any rate.

Inspiration. It was what she was hoping for, and it was what she got. She is going to be great, and make her family proud.

When she tells her parents, her mother smiles and tells her "that's nice," and her father doesn't even look up from his work to acknowledge her. She feels as though she has been kicked, but she doesn't cry. Instead, she vows that she won't live her life for anyone but herself ever again. She is her own woman (well, girl, but woman sounds more impressive), and she is going to be great.

Now that she has been initiated, she has the right to chose a new name, if she wishes. Most Time Lords don't bother, but most Time Lords have names that are more than nonsense words invented by a 'free spirit' that have no special significance.

Before her initiation, she was already planning on a name change. But now one of the names she was considering comes back to her, a name that derives from the root word for "belonging to oneself." It's pretty enough, she thinks, and certainly unique, which she likes.


	3. Academy

**A/N-** I'm sure some of you Whovians out there are worried that I may be drifting away from this fandom. No worries! Once a Whovian, always a Whovian. I just have side interests. Also, this one is much shorter than the previous two. Sorry about that. The Academy years are kinda... well, _dull_. And to make matters worse, they cover a long period of time, so I had to slightly alter my format to make my vision for this chapter work.

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3. Academy

Romanadvoratrelundar still loves books. Anything she could possibly want to know is available on computer or data crystal, but there's something magical about the feeling of books in her hands. The silvery paper on which Gallifreyan books are printed feels nice against her skin as she flicks through the pages. Most electronic information is now written in the elegant script of interlocking circles developed by a certain Meddling Monk (whose- unfortunately- very impressive contributions to society are almost always pawned off on lesser minds), but there's something alluring about the characters of traditional high Gallifreyan. There's also something about the smell, that distinctive bitter-sour smell of the pulp of the imbria tree (a preferred material for paper production) which appeals to her.

And so she reads quite a lot. Everyone does, of course. You can't survive the Academy without absolutely burying yourself in the standard literature. Romanadvoratrelundar, though, actually reads hard-bound books. She pilfers them from the Academy's collection and reads them- usually several times- before returning them in time to avoid detection. After so many years of losing herself- secretly, mind you- in the realms of beautiful fiction, she's a very fast reader.

Her friends are few. Her avid devotion to her studies intimidates most of those who might otherwise have approached her. The few with whom she does spend time are all so... ordinary. They're fine enough, she supposes, but they are neither interesting nor particularly intelligent. She frequently finds that in order to maintain even the barest semblance of an interpersonal relationship, it is necessary to reign in her own intellect.

Sometimes, she only feels half-real. She'll pick up a book and dream of the stars and grand deeds of valor and glory and her hearts send her blood racing through her veins and she doesn't just sympathize with her characters. She _becomes_ them. Her spirit rises up in her and chokes her and she knows that this is so, so wrong, because a proper Time Lady doesn't feel these things, doesn't have these grand and dangerous delusions. Then, when she determines that she must get back on track, she sets the story aside and goes back to her reality. It's so ordinary it breaks her heart. She lives in a world where everything is shades of gray. It is only in her dreams, inspired by her novels, that reality becomes vivid and prismatic.

It's as though she's drifting, sometimes. Oh, she's as diligent as ever in her studies (Lord Braxiatel's words still echo in her mind, and sometimes she swears she can feel the words _Lady President_ pulsing in time to her hearts), but it seems pointless. She can feel Gallifrey turning in its slow revolutions around the twin suns and it feels like at any moment she might be ripped from its surface. The young Time Lady called Romanadvoratrelundar is there, but she feels transparent and insubstantial, and she's just waiting for the moment that inertia takes hold and pries her free from her student's life on Gallifrey and hurls her out into the void between the stars.

And then, one day, she cannot stand it anymore. It is the most ordinary day in the world. She is, as usual, sitting in her comfortably appointed cell, a book in her lap, staring out the window as Mila sinks below the horizon, staining the orange sky with a flush of scarlet. She has stopped reading. She had to, because the poignant ache in her soul at the prospect of being _here_ instead of striding across the worlds in the far-gone days of legend is so raw and maddening that she cannot continue. Her green eyes turn hard and she surges to her feet and with a wordless cry, hurls the book across the room. As it crashes into the wall, she has already turned and upended the little chair on which she was sitting, and gives it a solid kick for good measure. All she achieves is a stubbed toe for her trouble.

That's the moment when she knows.

She knows she cannot do this any more. She cannot dream any longer, because it will kill her. The overwhelming need for all that will eat at her until it destroys her beyond even regeneration's ability to repair. She has to give it up.

Carefully, she sets the chair upright again. Then she cautiously retrieves the book from where it lay at the bottom of the gentle curve of the wall. She returns it to the library, and does not return there again except for strictly academic pursuits.

She thinks she has done well for herself.

The trouble is, you see, that we rarely see ourselves clearly. Giving up something which brings us joy is a painful process, and it leaves scars on the heart. Without that elation to light up our lives, our little flames we all carry inside flicker and die, and we become icy and bitter on the outside. This is what happened to Romanadvoratrelundar.


End file.
